Enchanting, tragic, and hilarious fairy tales for adults and children grace these pages. An initial glance might lead you to assume that these are satirical versions of classic Christmas ghost stories. However, beneath the humorous stories involving ghosts, repentant sinners, miracles, and good peasants who find well-deserved happiness, lies a psychological undercurrent that sharpens the sense of intrigue and plot movement. Often this is aided by the unrelenting social exposure of the authors who always understood how intangible the "bourgeois paradise" truly was. Even today, idyllic dreams of tolerance, equality, and the triumph of justice have failed to materialize. Perhaps that is why people continue to read these classic stories while the snow falls outside and the lights glow on the Christmas tree.
Contents:
Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol
The Chimes
G.K. Chesterton
A Christmas Carol
L.M. Montgomery
The Red Room
A Christmas Mistake
A Christmas Inspiration
The Josephs' Christmas
Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket
The Osbornes' Christmas
Bertie's New Year
Ida's New Year Cake
The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road
Clorinda's Gifts
The Falsoms' Christmas Dinner
The Unforgotten One
Christmas at Red Butte
Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner
L. Frank Baum
A Kidnapped Santa Claus
Little Bun Rabbit
Mark Twain
A Letter from Santa Claus
Louisa May Alcott
A Merry Christmas
Leo Tolstoy
A Russian Christmas Party
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Christmas Bells
The Three Kings
Nikolai Gogol
Christmas Eve
William Dean Howells
Christmas Everyday
The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express
Joseph Rudyard Kipling
Christmas in India
Elizabeth Harrison
Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe
John Milton
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity
Hans Christian Andersen
The Fir Tree
The Little Match Girl
Selma Lagerlof
The Holy Night
Clement Moore
The Night Before Christmas
Henry van Dyke
The Other Wise Man
Beatrix Potter
The Tailor of Gloucester
Anton Chehov
Vanka
O. Henry
The Gift of the Magi
Hesba Stretton
The Christmas Child
Kenneth Grahame
The Wind in the Willows
Robert Louis Stevenson
Christmas at Sea
Walter Scott
Christmas In The Olden Time
Alfred Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells
Abbie Farwell Brown
The Christmas Angel
Anthony Trollope
Christmas at Thompson Hall
Thomas Hardy
The Oxen
William Butler Yeats
The Magi
William Makepeace Thackeray
The Mahogany Tree
Charles Kingsley
Christmas Day
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Christmas Fancies
C. W. Stubbs
Twas Jolly, Jolly Wat
Eugene Field
Jest 'Fore Christmas
Paul Laurence Dunbar
A Christmas Folksong
William Topaz McGonagall
A Tale of Christmas Eve
Emily Dickinson
The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman